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Beyond Consciousness: Intuitive Decision-Making
AI Suggested Keywords:
Seminar_The_Nature_of_Mind
The seminar "The Nature of Mind" discusses the concept of intuition and decision-making beyond structured consciousness. It explores how intuitive impulses often emerge from a different cognitive space, influencing decisions that feel instinctive rather than pragmatic. The discussion also considers the potential reliability of these impulses in both minor and significant life decisions, and the nature of consciousness during states like anesthesia, where awareness persists without direct consciousness.
- I Ching: An ancient divination text referenced as a tool through which decisions made at the conscious level can produce answers seemingly originating from a different, unconscious space.
- Work of Arnie Mandel: Mentioned in relation to consciousness and awareness, particularly in cases such as comas, where individuals can be aware but not conscious, highlighting a different territory of knowing beyond conventional consciousness.
AI Suggested Title: Beyond Consciousness: Intuitive Decision-Making
Okay, who would like to speak first? Or who is willing to speak first, even if you don't want to? Yes. I can always depend on you, Andreas. Almost always I can depend on you. It's difficult for me to remember what we were talking about, but I'll try it. One example was yesterday evening. We wanted to go somewhere. We didn't know, couldn't make up in mind where to go. So I said to myself, I just stand still and wait and listen to my body what will appear. This is how I find him this morning.
[01:01]
Many of us have experienced such experiences in other situations. A portion of trust is also part of it. And what is perhaps special about it is that you don't have to be in the structured consciousness to know what to do next. It means that there is a certain portion of trust necessary and it means that you don't need to be always in the structured consciousness to know what to do next. Yes. Someone else told me that there was someone in an action who made a decision based on a good feeling and then did something and then found out that it wasn't so good. What someone else was reporting was, having made a decision with a real good feeling, and it just felt right, and later on discovering that it didn't feel so good after all, while still being in the process.
[02:34]
We then found out, Herr Gruber, that this might mean that if one is following such an impulse, that one is not old, but one is following something new again and again. And what we discovered in our group was that having followed such an impulse, other things follow from that. Yeah. Okay. Someone else. Yeah. I mean, for me, the first thing that came to mind was, for the intuition, I have to create space. The first thing that came to my mind was for intuition I have to make room, space. And in many parts of my former life it was that I just had an emergency room. For example, we went to the toilet.
[03:35]
The world could stay outside and there could be some relaxation when going to the toilet. It's where the, what do you say in Germany? Where the emperor goes alone? Which is a completely different thing where through practice and through sitting you can create a much wider space. It's a difficulty and it's a completely different effort in daily life to create this space of mindfulness.
[04:38]
It's an effort to do it? Sometimes. Yeah, okay. And difficulty. Okay, someone else? Yeah. . I had an experience where a very deep longing arose in me. And I actually had the feeling that it was a decision, yes, for me it was a very deep decision towards Zen, which I had not hit, which I had hit from the bottom of my head, but which was actually a decision that followed. During the practice period, there came a deep longing and a decision was made, which I didn't make personally myself, but to go nearer, closer to approach, then more.
[06:04]
Whereas with my consciousness there were many reasons speaking against it, but altogether it was right to have made that decision. Yesterday, when the bell was ringing, I suddenly had this longing again. It was so interesting, because it was this memory through the bell and this brother in Johannesburg, who immediately brought me back to this deep longing. I found that very interesting, because I thought to myself, Yesterday when you rang the bell this deep longing was there again and it was sort of that the body had saved this memory which completely reappeared and it was sort of back in that mind.
[07:35]
Okay. I am asking myself where I got it on this flip chart, because it was not in the area of consciousness, but on the physical level, and at the same time, it just happened like a repetition. So, because of the fact that when I read a book, or when I quote a book, or when I read [...] a book, looking at the flip chart I couldn't find where this figures in it was just this bodily memory which was triggered through the bell like in Johanneshof but on a bodily plane so to say but I couldn't make up where to find this here or how this fits in that I wrote that
[08:51]
Well, this isn't a complete picture, but to the extent that it does fit in, it would fit in the so-called fourth mind. By the way, how are you feeling? How is your health this day? So-so. I hope you get better. Yeah. Yes. I have a question. A couple of years ago, I very often worked with I Ching, and my feeling was to work with I Ching was a decision made by my consciousness. But the answers I got, I felt they came from a different space. Yeah, I understand.
[09:53]
Deutsch bitte. A few years ago I worked quite often with the I Ching and had the feeling that when I ask my question and of course also make this decision, I want to question it, I make my decision on the level of consciousness and the answers that I have received, I had the feeling, do not come from consciousness, but from another space. So anyone else want to say something? We went sort of circled around this theme and found many examples where the people thought, talking, that came from a different plane of consciousness, so to say. One example was when you wake up in the morning, but you don't get up yet, and you are lying in a dim state, and then suddenly the impulse comes, get up now.
[10:58]
There is no reason, it could come a little earlier, a little later, at some point you have to get up. Example being that lying in bed at the morning where you don't have to get up and sort of dozing away half and then suddenly the impulse is to get up where you could have gotten up earlier or later. Where does this impulse come from? Yes, and then we talked about it and expressed the assumption that it probably plays a role much more often than one is aware of. So an inner control that, so to speak, is not lost by a conscious decision, but one usually does not perceive it, that there is actually a control. So we concluded, we came to the conclusion that this takes place much more often sort of in these impulses or these activity is much more than it is.
[11:58]
More common than we know to think usually. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. In our group we had a discussion and how far you can trust these things for important decisions in your life. Some said how often it helped them and how good it was, and others, for example Gerwald, said that they also experienced the opposite, that they had a good intuition and the decision was subsequently wrong and that they sometimes had a feeling of rejection in the body Several of us found this very helpful in the last, basing the decisions on such a feeling, but also the other way around, having a good feeling in the beginning, but then sort of finding out it was a wrong decision, or having a bad feeling in the body,
[13:17]
staying with that, that turned around to be something positive than later on. We have such a consensus that it is also mainly with smaller, specific, concrete things that it is often very consistent. It is not so with such big life decisions, And we agreed upon that in the more detailed, the sort of smaller decisions in daily life, it was sort of more, it fit more than in the big decisions of our lives, big situations. Yeah. But I think sometimes we make a decision and we say, I had no choice. And those are often big decisions and it's the same kind of decision. I don't know if I can express it, but I try it. Meanwhile, I got kind of the feeling that what you told us about this wired-up guy who has an activity somewhere before consciousness starts making a decision.
[14:54]
I knew it from German people that invented this stuff as well. I've made the same work here. It seems to me as if, well, I... or less, as if my life always happens this way and consciousness is nothing else but adjusting to what's going on. But it didn't occur to me before that it is this way. But when I look back, because I'm a little old meanwhile, when I look back I can see I didn't do so much. And what turned out good was when I could fit into what happened anyhow. What you said, I had no choice. I don't think it's good or bad. Is that the question? It's... How can I explain it? It's just fitting into or trying to fight something you can't fight anyhow.
[15:57]
Okay. So what is good? So it's like, I would say in my language, it's like pissing against the wind. So you'll get wet. It's not the wind that makes it. It's my stability. Why not turn around? And my life seems like everything that worked was like pissing in the right direction. Mm-hmm. So my decision is... There's some basic things we have to learn. Particularly if we're a boy. Sorry. I only try to explain. No, no, I understand. I don't know any words when I do. No, I understand. Deutsch, bitte. Oh. That's a lie. I forgot it completely. LAUGHTER As I said, with consciousness, when you look back, let's say, it was often the case that your consciousness, more or less tirelessly, adapted to how it was already decided.
[17:10]
It was not decided by consciousness, it was fused. And more or less ten nurses have put their consciousness into it, so to speak. Or it was like this. You can choose whether you tickle against the wind or with the wind. Something like that. Yes, but it's not good or bad or heavy or light. It's just. It is. And the rest we do up here. Then we make a program about it. Yes, and that fits in or less. Yeah. It's all nonsense. Just do it. It's completely nonsense. Just do it. Just be. Just be. Alive. Happens anyhow. Yeah, okay. Valentin, would you like to speak for your rather silent group?
[18:14]
Um... I have to remember what we talked about. It wasn't too long ago. Maybe some of the group can help me. Good. What stays in my memory is, well, there's a few things unconcerned with, but first somebody else said, But they lived with their partner, spouse for, I think, maybe eight years. They went married. And suddenly this decision came that this person would ask his girlfriend if they would marry. And he understood and rightly didn't think about it.
[19:17]
The decision was one way, just that. She'd been waiting. Or she ran the other way. I don't know. Go ahead. Maybe some people in the... Okay. Well, let's see. Who's going to help there? Er hat davon gesprochen, dass er ins Kloster gehen möchte, weil er einen Impuls dazu hat. Aber der Verstand sagt ja und nein, dass er sich da nicht klar wird. He talked about that he had the impulse to go into the monastery and his consciousness mind said yes and no and the decision was difficult.
[20:18]
If I understand it right. Okay. Okay. My experience was in a situation in my life when satsang doesn't just work out right, I go with relatively much trust into it. And I have the feeling I have to change myself and I have to change my attitude that something changes around me. When I live into something new, it may even take a year to see that my attitude did change, in fact.
[21:29]
The main points about it are that I can wait, that I have relatively much trust, and I don't take too important what I'm doing. Serious. Serious, serious. Too seriously. Yeah. Okay. I guess that's all the groups. Does anybody else want to say anything? Jerry? Jerry? Jerry follows his impulses all the time. He was checking out things in the hallway when he thought I wasn't looking, you know, what's in the drawer and things like this. Okay. Yeah, please. We had a little discussion among ourselves because my friend is an anesthesiologist. And actually what happens when you sort of put out the, well, chemically, of course, put out the consciousness, what remains?
[22:49]
You go into anesthesia, or you're being put into anesthesia. And, of course, the body functions, mostly, again. And there are sometimes different reports, sometimes people dreaming, sometimes sort of even half-wake, half-not. But I found that out when I had my hernia operation, that I really tried to get at what was going on. It was just like a switch being turned. It was out and on. Right. Yeah. I've heard that especially from people who had this cornea eye operation. They They say, okay, now we're going to do it, and a moment later they say, you're finished, and a couple of hours have passed, and they say, what, you just started. But, you know, Arnie Mandel has done this work with people in comas, which they can really, there's a lot going on underneath. And then there are cases of people who actually seem to be dead.
[24:02]
Their hearts stop, they're slowed down, their brain is cut open, everything's flat-lined, and then they tell you everything that happened in the room. Well, I don't know if there's any explanation for this, except that it does happen. You want to say something? We speak about awareness, and that was the basic for the discussion. Yeah, I understand. Awareness, it means they realize everything that happens, but they can't speak. Yeah, it's not conscious, but they're aware. Yeah. Yeah, that's it. Awareness, like you, explains these two. Yeah. I think that's the case. I describe it that way, but I think it goes beyond that description, and I don't know how to describe it.
[25:19]
But let's just say that for now, it's in a different territory of knowing and consciousness. Shall we have a stretch and then I'll try to finish?
[25:41]
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